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Formula E has built its identity around unpredictability. Across its first 12 seasons, the championship has crowned 10 different champions, creating a record of competitive variety that is difficult to match. Only Jean-Eric Vergne and Pascal Wehrlein have won the title more than once, while every other champion has taken the crown once.
As Formula E prepares to enter the GEN4 era, its champions provide a useful guide to the championship’s evolution. The list begins with Nelson Piquet Jr’s narrow breakthrough in Season 1, moves through title fights decided by collisions, fastest laps and final-round pressure, and arrives at Wehrlein’s tense London triumph.
Only one driver could become Formula E’s inaugural champion, and that honour went to Nelson Piquet Jr. Racing for Chinese team Nextev, Piquet secured the title during the final race around London’s Battersea Park after a close contest with Sebastien Buemi.
The margin was just one point. That narrow advantage reflected the intensity of the championship’s first season, with Piquet combining victories at Long Beach and Moscow with podium finishes in Punta del Este, Buenos Aires and Monaco. His achievement was historic: he became the first Formula E champion and established the standard against which the championship’s future title winners would be measured.
Piquet continued racing in Formula E until Season 5, but his place in the record books was secured from the moment he emerged on top in London.
Buemi did not have to wait long for his opportunity. The Swiss driver won the second season in one of the championship’s most dramatic finales, beginning the last race from pole position with his principal title rival, Lucas di Grassi, starting third.
The two drivers were tied on points before the race. Once the lights went out, however, the title fight changed immediately: Buemi and di Grassi collided, damaging both cars. Di Grassi’s front end was ruined, while Buemi lost his rear wing. Both returned to the pits and switched to their second cars, leaving the fastest-lap point as a decisive part of the contest.
Buemi had already won three races, in Beijing, Punta del Este and Berlin, and added three further podiums during the season. Yet it was the fastest lap in the final race that ultimately delivered the championship. It was a title won amid emotional scenes and through the smallest of margins.
Buemi remains a Formula E competitor. He enters Season 12 with a new multi-year contract at Envision Racing and won the previous year’s Monaco E-Prix for a third time. At the time of publication, his 14 victories place him level with Jaguar TCS Racing’s Mitch Evans for the most wins in Formula E history.
After falling short the previous season, Lucas di Grassi finally became champion at the end of Season 3. His connection with Formula E ran particularly deep: he had worked closely with the championship and helped test the first concepts of a car. He was also the winner of the first Formula E race in 2014.
The title campaign brought di Grassi back into a close fight with Buemi. The pair arrived at the Montreal double-header with the championship still finely balanced, but di Grassi seized control in Canada. He won Saturday’s race from pole position and then finished ahead of Buemi the following day, securing the crown in decisive fashion.
Di Grassi is still racing in Formula E, now with Lola Yamaha ABT. In Season 11, he finished second in Miami, helping the team claim its first podium in the championship. As he prepared for the 2025/26 season, he had recorded 13 victories and 41 podiums.
For readers following how the championship’s title battles continue to develop, the recent report on Pascal Wehrlein’s dramatic Formula E title victory provides a direct link between this early era of close rivalries and the latest championship finale.
Jean-Eric Vergne became Formula E’s fourth champion and ensured that the championship had four different winners in its first four years. His title was not secured through an easy run to the finish. Instead, it was built around recovery under pressure.
Vergne was forced to start from the back of the grid in the first of the two races forming the New York City finale. He responded by climbing through the field to finish fifth. That result was enough to secure the championship with one race still to run.
The title marked the beginning of an even more significant chapter in Vergne’s Formula E career. His success in Season 4 was followed by another championship the next year, making him the first driver in the series to win back-to-back titles. In Season 12, Vergne joins Citroën Racing as the French manufacturer begins its first voyage into single-seater racing.
Vergne’s success did not stop with his first title. He became Formula E’s only back-to-back champion to date when he retained the crown in Season 5, again sealing the championship during the double-header in New York.
The setting was familiar, with the title decided in front of US fans and within view of the Statue of Liberty. Vergne faced competition from Lucas di Grassi and Jaguar’s Mitch Evans, but the decisive moment came when di Grassi made a mistake while attempting to pass Evans. The incident eliminated both drivers on the final lap and removed them from contention.
Vergne’s achievement stands apart in the championship’s history. Formula E’s first seasons repeatedly produced new champions, but he alone managed to convert one title into two consecutive crowns.
The 2019/20 season transformed Formula E’s competitive landscape. The championship began in Diriyah and then travelled to Chile, Mexico and Morocco before the global pandemic brought racing to a halt.
When competition resumed in August, the calendar had been drastically amended. Formula E staged six races in nine days around Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport, creating an unusually compressed conclusion to the campaign. Antonio Felix da Costa was already leading the championship when the schedule was suspended, having recorded one victory and two second-place finishes.
He then won the first two back-to-back races in Berlin. Those victories extended his points advantage and allowed him to secure his maiden drivers’ title with two rounds remaining. The championship was shaped by disruption, but da Costa finished it with the authority required of a champion.
After racing for Porsche during the previous three seasons, the Portuguese driver joins Jaguar TCS Racing for a new chapter in Season 12.
By Season 7, Formula E had been recognised as a World Championship by its governing body, the FIA. Mercedes driver Nyck de Vries became the first Formula E World Champion for the 2020/21 season, although the title was decided in typically dramatic circumstances.
Four drivers entered the final race with a chance of taking the championship. The tension lasted only moments. Evans failed to move away from his grid slot at the start and was then hit by Edoardo Mortara, removing two title contenders from the contest. Jake Dennis was next to suffer, retiring with a mechanical issue.
Those incidents left de Vries as the remaining driver in contention. The Dutchman still had to survive several challenges before reaching the chequered flag, but his season-long record of two wins and two additional podiums proved sufficient. He became Formula E’s first World Champion.
De Vries returned to Formula E with Mahindra Racing from Season 10 after a brief spell racing in Formula 1 for AlphaTauri and a one-off appearance for Williams in Monza.
Mercedes powered another driver to the title in the following season. Stoffel Vandoorne became champion at the end of Season 8, sealing the final drivers’ championship of the GEN2 era at the last race in Seoul.
Consistency was the defining feature of his campaign. Vandoorne finished outside the points only once across 16 races, a record that underlined the value of avoiding costly weekends in a championship where margins can be extremely small. He also set records on the way to the title, including the most podiums in a season at that time, and claimed a special victory in Monaco.
Vandoorne remains connected to the championship and will work closely with Jaguar TCS Racing as its Reserve Driver throughout Season 12.
Jake Dennis became Formula E’s first champion of the GEN3 era with Andretti. Across the 2022/23 campaign, the team, Dennis and their Porsche powertrains produced a level of performance that made the British driver the clear benchmark for the season.
Dennis collected 11 pieces of silverware, a Formula E record that still stands. He completed his title campaign with two podiums at his home race in London, results that confirmed him as World Champion.
There was one notable interruption to his run. Dennis finished without points across four races from Hyderabad through to the first round in Berlin. Even so, he almost always returned to the podium, and his overall consistency made him the eighth different champion in nine seasons.
Porsche’s strong form continued in Season 10, when Pascal Wehrlein became the next Formula E World Champion. His campaign began with victory in Mexico City, and he added further wins in Misano and London while fighting both Jaguar drivers, Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy, in a tense finale.
Wehrlein converted third place into victory during Saturday’s race, taking the championship lead before the final contest on Sunday. Three drivers still had a mathematical chance of winning the title, and none had previously secured it. Drama then struck the Jaguars, while Wehrlein’s second-place finish proved enough to make him champion.
The result extended Porsche’s influence over the GEN3 era and confirmed Wehrlein as a driver capable of managing a championship fight through its most pressurised moments.
Oliver Rowland was the 2024/25 champion, returning for another season with Nissan while carrying the number one badge on his car. His campaign was built on a remarkable opening sequence: seven podiums in the first nine races.
That consistency stood out in an exceptionally competitive season. Every team finished on the podium at least once, while 16 of the 22 drivers achieved a top-three result. Against that backdrop, Rowland’s ability to keep scoring gave his title challenge a clear shape.
He secured the championship at the penultimate race weekend in Berlin. The title felt almost inevitable by that stage, even though his form dipped midway through the season and he endured three consecutive non-scoring finishes.
Rowland became the 10th different champion in the first 11 seasons, a statistic that captures Formula E’s defining competitive quality: no driver had been able to establish prolonged control of the championship beyond Vergne’s successive titles.
The latest champion is Pascal Wehrlein, who joins Vergne as the only driver to have won multiple Formula E titles. Racing for Porsche, Wehrlein survived a tense season finale at London’s Excel and finished five points clear of Andretti’s Jake Dennis and Jaguar TCS Racing’s Mitch Evans.
His route to the championship was not straightforward. Wehrlein began the season strongly, recording podiums in three of the opening six rounds, but then endured a difficult point-less weekend on the streets of Monaco. As the leading contenders experienced their own ups and downs, the title remained open deep into the campaign.
Wehrlein’s response was characteristic of his championship run: he maintained his composure and returned to form, collecting valuable points when they mattered most. In a finale shaped by pressure and close competition, that calm approach delivered his second title.
The champion list tells a clear story. Piquet’s one-point triumph, Buemi’s fastest-lap decider, di Grassi’s Montreal double-header, Vergne’s consecutive crowns, da Costa’s Berlin charge, de Vries’ survival in a chaotic finale, Vandoorne’s consistency, Dennis’ GEN3 dominance, Rowland’s sustained podium form and Wehrlein’s composure all represent different routes to the same prize.
Across 12 years of racing, Formula E has produced 10 different champions. That variety is more than a statistical curiosity. It reflects a championship in which momentum can change quickly, title contenders can be removed by a single incident, and consistency can prove as important as outright victories.
As the series prepares to enter the GEN4 era, the question is not simply who will win next. It is whether Formula E’s defining pattern will continue: a new champion emerging from a grid rich in talent, or one of its established title winners extending their place in history.
Source: FIA Formula E
He’s a software engineer with a deep passion for Formula 1 and motorsport. He co-founded Formula Live Pulse to make live telemetry and race insights accessible, visual, and easy to follow.